


In the Eyes of the Cat...

by Siver



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22867762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/pseuds/Siver
Summary: ...Scientific observation states it’s a warm something
Relationships: Alma/Cabanela/Jowd (Ghost Trick)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	In the Eyes of the Cat...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



Detective Jowd is not stupid. Sissel knows this very well. Sissel does however stand by his original statement of being incredibly misguided. So much for that long night changing that much. Detective Jowd’s best friend is also not stupid; that’s plain for anyone to see and also learned that night. Detective Jowd’s wife is a new entity to him, turns out she’s more than a match for the detective as well.

How Jowd expects to maintain his secrets without anyone noticing anything is wrong is beyond this cat, but try Jowd does and no one is fooled.

No one is making a lot of progress either.

So, he takes matters into his own paws. He focuses on Alma. He lives with her after all. Cabanela would be trickier, but Jowd’s actions on the job handle that well. So the home-front it is. A few well-placed “accidents”, easy to explain away should Jowd ask, but enough to draw Alma’s suspicion and the pieces continue to line up in hushed conversations between she and the white coat, as surely as any of Kamila’s contraptions. Humans had to complicate matters. Especially, he sometimes thinks, these humans.

Nothing can stay in the shadows and the truth has to come out eventually. Despite Jowd’s denial Sissel can’t see how it could have been any other way. Alma and Cabanela are victorious and there’s little more for the cat to do but bear witness to that painful conversation and send the occasional encouraging remark to Jowd.

It changes a great deal and yet very little at the same time. There’s still pain and Jowd’s still burdened, but that pain is now shared between them and Sissel figures they’re well up to carrying that load. Life goes on.

And life brings other complications.

Jowd is a simple detective like any other, or so Sissel has been told by the man himself. Yet, while Sissel watches from his place in Jowd’s badge, and the others take Jowd’s statements and opinions like command and the casework runs like a well-oiled machine, he has to wonder at the good detective’s definition.

He also has to wonder if the White Coat agrees by how intense his gaze on Jowd is, seemingly blind to everything else and one might also wonder how he keeps apace when his attention seems so narrow until he’s rattling off all the clues, connecting them in a more convoluted affair than a tangle of phone wires and all the pieces fall neatly into place except one that Jowd neatly slots in and just like that the case is as good as solved over a lunch of roast chicken and pasta.

Simple is as simple does, Sissel supposes.

Simplicity doesn’t extend to household affairs it seems. They put on a good show of it, naturally. If there’s something Sissel has come to observe if not understand the whys of, it’s that they are all three of them excellent players.

So Cabanela swirls by the house as is standard for a Thursday dinner where schedules line up perfectly and he gives his greetings to Sissel and Kamila before joining the couple and everything seems perfectly normal.

Until Cabanela drapes himself over the end of their couch as comfortable as any cat in a beam of sunshine and raises his glass in a toast to the best of friends and Sissel has to jump off the couch to avoid the sudden barrier he’s not entirely sure they’ve noticed. There’s that sudden hunch in Jowd’s shoulders Sissel hates when he’s riding them, feels like he’d get dumped off if he stayed, and Cabanela’s poise is too calculated and there’s a moment of sudden distance in Alma’s eyes.

There’s no denying the truth of that statement; he’s got a long night and a new life to prove that. He’s just vague on how they’re missing or choosing to ignore the rest of the equation and why it’s causing them this problem. It is what it is, isn’t it? Then again, he briefly considers what he saw of two of the three parties that night—rooted in ruts with stubborn streaks a mile-wide. Yeah, maybe it’s not so surprising.

Humans.

And once again Sissel finds himself getting not involved exactly, not directly, but a few extra little nudges here and there can’t hurt and if it brings some real peace away from the bursts of Alma’s nervous uncertainty and Jowd’s not-remotely-subtle avoidance of certain topics behind a solid wall of guilt in the ghost world, and the looks, oh the looks when Cabanela thinks no one is looking, all the better.

They’re only small acts, but he knows better than most what can stem from the littlest of starts.

He and Alma have developed their own system of basic communication and when he gives a particularly emphatic meow of assent to her musing on inviting Cabanela to dinner on Sunday she raises an eyebrow in surprise and laughs and says she’s glad to see he’s fond of him and yes, Sissel also meows his agreement there. Too bad he doesn’t have the means to tell her he does like the White Coat and the coat itself for that matter, but he’s not the confused one here.

When Cabanela stops by he forces a louder purr in greeting and refrains from toying with his scarf—this time—some things are a one-time deal and that’s all there is to it. He chooses his places carefully, a guide to seating arrangements. He also knows even the smallest changes in distance can make all the difference.

For Jowd he drops hints in the ghost world with all the subtlety of a roast chicken to the face. There are no secrets here and besides Jowd is either dense in these matters or willfully obstinate—Sissel is willing to bet on both—and such measures are needed to cut through his thick walls.

Can’t they see they’re all in the same boat?

Something finally clicks. Sissel catches snippets of Jowd and Alma’s low conversation and catches a whole lot more of their worries and pads away with a flick of his tail. As he thinks of the comfortable atmosphere and the soft looks he only sees between them and Cabanela’s casual hugs and cat-like sprawls he wonders what on earth they are worried _about_. Are they that blind?

When the day finally comes he knows it’s time at last. It’s some human holiday or other and the house is thick with tension. He entertains Kamila who is clearly not happy about that tension but apparently too young to understand. A few ghostly tugs and pulls to her toys has her giggling away and Sissel has to say that yes actually, toddlers can be a great deal easier than their adults.

Nap time comes as it does and the clock ticks ever closer. Sissel ditches his body in his cupboard and dives for the phone that will take him to visit Yomiel where a prison is far more comfortable than the current household.

When he finally returns, driven by curiosity and a desire to see his own small efforts come to fruition, things are already well underway. The battle’s already been taking place in the living room and Sissel takes his place in the TV remote, earning an easy view from the TV stand.

He wonders what exactly got said just before he entered because Cabanela is poised in a way that seems frozen in fear (him? here?) and at the same time ready to bolt yet fixated on Jowd. Jowd takes Cabanela’s wrist, lifts his hand to his mouth and kisses it. It’s clearly an important move. Cabanela’s eyes haven’t left Jowd’s and Alma looks tense and nervous and… almost triumphant?

Then Jowd circles Cabanela with his other arm and pulls him close so they’re nose to nose. Sissel’s reminded of the way he’s seen humans dance together. Maybe this is a different kind of dance.

“I may be the fool here, but I know my choice,” Jowd says in a low voice and kisses Cabanela. Sissel thinks Alma definitely looks triumphant now.

Jowd pulls back just a little, still supporting Cabanela. Cabanela doesn’t look afraid now, but stunned like he just sat up from taking a hat to the face. Thankfully no explosions this time, at least none so visible Sissel can be aware of them.

Two sets of eyes turn to Alma and it’s Cabanela who speaks, a little more breathless than Sissel is used to hearing from him.

“And youuu?”

Alma steps up to Cabanela and catches his hand, runs her thumb over his palm and smiles up at him. “It shouldn’t be surprising, but if anyone can be called a fool here, I think it’s a title we’ve all shared.”

Cabanela gives a short laugh in response before it’s cut off by Alma giving him another of those kisses. Jowd wraps his large arms around them both and there’s an unfamiliar merriment in his eyes.

“She’s right. Look at your choices.”

Cabanela breaks away from his kiss with Alma even as his hand entwines with hers, so he can look at Jowd.

“I’m lookin’ baby. I wouldn’t make aaany other.”

They’re on the couch, Cabanela between them. Hands entwine and wrap around shoulders. Fingers trail over long legs like they can’t get enough of the feel of him and if Sissel thought Cabanela was like a cat in sunshine before he may as well _be_ that sunshine now. Though the looks he’s giving Jowd and Alma make it clear who _he_ thinks the suns are here.

Sissel curls up in the overstuffed armchair often shared with Kamila when she can clamber onto it. Jowd shoots him the briefest of sharply knowing looks before Cabanela takes his attention back. They are, all three of them, ridiculous, but, Sissel decides, that’s perfectly all right with him. While he can’t feel it, he knows there’s a lightness that wasn’t there before and a new and not-so-new warmth. Life begins again, different and not so different at all.

**Author's Note:**

> With a very Happy Birthday to laughingpineapple! Take these loving jerks from and for an exasperated cat.


End file.
